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Pi Player Master + 2 BBB (BBB run very slow)

*** FIXED *** I had E1.31 output checked on the master player. Once unchecked, it worked fine.

I am running the Pi Player as a master, with 2 BBB remotes. When I start a sequence, all three players start appropriately, however, at 10-15 seconds, both the BBB's slow down dramatically, while the master continues to run fine.

I have tested sequences created this year, all in Vixen 3, as well as sequences I used last year (that worked fine) where the BBB sequence was created in Xlights. In all cases, the sequences in the BBB's slow down dramatically starting at 10-15 seconds.

Dates and times across the 3 players are synced. All log reports have been turned off. The BBB's run fine in bridge mode directly from Vixen 3. They also run fine as a stand alone player with no slow down.

I'm not sure what other info I should post as I don't know what is relevant to this. Suggestions?!?

Play the sequence from the master and within about 5 seconds, the playback goes from fast to very slow on the BBB remote that is powering a 10x2 P10 matrix.

If I turn _off_ the "Enable E1.31 /ArtNet Output" on the pi master, then playback is good.

1. I use the pi player to send E1.31 to my SanDevices e682 controllers normally. I believe I have to have those outputs set up when I go to run the actual show from the pi master.
2. While I am test the BBB with my 10x2 P10 panel matrix, the test network doesn't have the e682 controllers connected so there are no devices listening on the IPs that the e682s would normally

Is there an issue being caused by the channel outputs that are set up, only for the e682s, when the e682s aren't plugged into the test network?

These are all connected via a single 1GB 8-port Netgear GS108 switch - no router.

When testing Ctrlr1-3 are not on the network. Things start fine and then after about 5 seconds, the remote playback updates are crawling - and I noticed the elapsed and remaining times freeze and become out of sync.

To work around the issue, I disabled the e1.31 output on the master based on the suggestion above. This concerned me as I wasn't sure that would mean my full show would still be o.k. so I was looking for a way to have my testing setup be even closer to the final production setup.

As a 2nd work-around, I switched the e1.31 outputs back on and verified that playback was slow again. Then, I added the 10.0.0.5-7 ipaddresses to my laptop ( 10.0.0.3 ). I tried playback from master to the remote again and voila! Playback speed was back to normal and the elapsed/remaining times were in sync!

Just to be sure this was the reason for the change, I removed the 3 addressed from my laptop and playback went back to crawling.

I talking with another technical person, it sounds like the issue might be that the master is causing an arp/broadcast storm trying associate the 3 controllers to their mac addresses and switch ports. This storm would be flooding the switch they are all plugged into and the BBB with packets.

Only drawback here is to remember to remove those IPs from my laptop once I have all the controllers plugged into the switch again.

Re: Pi Player Master + 2 BBB (BBB run very slow)

an arp storm is not likely unless you have a loop in the network. the pc sends a single arp on a timer. however, you are using direct addresses. this means the system is using tcp. that means timers and retries and more which will cause the pc (or pi) to slow down. adding a receiver will resolve the issue (as you noted). making the addresses multicast will also work as that moves to udp and does not invoke arp and therefore no arp timers which means no queing etc.

2018 - Moving and going to visit my Daughter in New Zealand. Most likely I will be dark or nearly dark, Some static stuff that is simple to put up.

Re: Pi Player Master + 2 BBB (BBB run very slow)

In other words, if the sender sends a packet and doesn't get a reply saying it was received, it waits then sends again. Does this several times before abandoning the message.
This has been a problem for a lot of scenarios.

Multicast doesn't wait for a reply. It just "shouts it out to the world", no matter if there is anyone out there to listen, or not.